Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

84 THE FACE OF MAN control, those other faces which we cannot influence because they have already hardened into anatomy. MICRODRAMA This is another necessary consequence of micromimicry. The detailed psychology of the close-up picture occupied so much space (and so many feet) in the film, that less and less room was left for the story. The richer the episodes were in inner content, the fewer episodes had room in the film, the length of which is as unalterably predetermined as that of a sonata. But there was no longer any need for a multitude of adventurous episodes, for a piling of event on event. The extensivity of the early colportage style gave way to intensity; the story turned inward, deepened, penetrated the soul. The development of the close-up changed the whole style of the film story and scenario. The stories now dealt with the hidden subtle adventures of the soul. Great novels rich in incident were no longer found suitable for filmic treatment. What was wanted were not intricate and adventurous, but plain and simple stories. The specific imagination and inventiveness of the film-makers manifested itself in the pictorial forming of details and not in the visual activity of bustling scenes. What the film-makers now liked to show were scenes which could scarcely be described in words, which could be understood only when seen. In this way the silent film grew less and less 'literary', following in this respect the trend at that time prevalent in the art of painting. DRAMATIC STATE The technique of the close-up which thus simplified the story of the film and deepened and brought to dramatic life its smallest details, succeeded in lending dramatic tension to a mere state or condition, without any external event at all. It was able to make us feel nerve-rackingly the sultry tension underneath the superficial calm; the fierce storms raging under the surface were made tangible by mere microscopic move